New towns on the horizon

After the housing secretary Steve Reed announced plans for the creation of seven new towns in England, The Rundown this week looks at how the government is tackling this country’s housing crisis, and how it is getting on in meeting its supremely ambitious target of building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament.Host Alain Tolhurst caught up with housing minister Matthew Pennycook to discuss how important new towns are to his department’s aims, and their wider economic benefits and creation of a new sense of place, or if they are a distraction in trying to hit the numbers of houses that communities are crying out for.Later in the episode a fantastic panel discusses a whole host of issues around these proposed settlements, featuring the Labour MP Sean Woodcock, who sits on the housing select committee, alongside Vicky Spratt, housing and society correspondent the i newspaper, Professor Susan Parham, head of urbanism and planning and director of the University of Hertfordshire Urbanism Unit, and Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insight at the National Federation of Builders.To sign up for our newsletters click herePresented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot